Ex-Staffs of Nigeria Airways Petition Senate President
In a letter dated August 11, 2015 and signed jointly by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the staffs under the aegis of Nigeria Airways Pensioners, J.T. Ogunye and Jaja Somiari respectively, the ex-workers lamented that the Olusegun Obasanjo-led government decided to voluntarily liquidate Nigeria Airways about 11 years ago, and that the former president, despite the interministerial committee’s recommendation of 25 years pension pay off to be paid to the pensioners, threw the report aside and, instead, approved only five years’ pension pay off.
According to them in the petition, late President Musa Yar’Adua, eventually paid the five years in 2008, leaving a balance of 20 years pensions pay off as outstanding.
The ex-workers stated further that, it is on record that the former President Olusegun Obasanjo still enjoys an enhanced presidential pensions payment package for upward of 36 years since he first left office in 1979, and still counting.
The petition revealed the ex-staffs of the rested Nigeria Airways had previously written to countless number of authorities, both in government and notable Nigerians, to intervene and bring about this matter to a timely resolution, to no avail.
They stressed that with deep sense of loss, they have continued to vent their spleen and frustration over the outpouring of public grief regarding the many avoidable deaths they have recorded as a result of the delay in the payment of the entitlements.
The group averred that even as the current government was tinkering with the idea of floating a national carrier, the ghost of Nigeria Airways must be properly put to permanent rest by the prompt payment of the legitimate entitlements of the Nigeria Airways pensioners before any such exercise is carried out.